diary livejournal fossils
Excerpts from Forest's reply to my email:
[...]I was/am just as miffed at what you said. The fact is, we do have a composition degree here. If we as a committee accept you as a composition major, then you can be one.[...]What do you all think? I'm now quite torn.. I'd really like to stick around for a bit longer and, as Forest said, have the resource of the music department to play with, as well as have that extra assurance of 'Composition' on my diploma for some schools. He does have a point about Just Getting Done, though.. HmmI am not sure what Dr. Wohl is saying exactly, and I don't want to be unprofessional, so I will continue to help you figure this out. I put your portfolio in his box over a month ago, and sent an email to him about this (as well as Dr. Queen) with the intent on getting you approved to be a composition major. We have already done this for one other student, and you are the perfect candidate for this as well. Aargh!
As far as whether or not you should graduate with the BA, that is a tough call. There is a lot to be said to just getting done, but it really comes down to your portfolio. Do you feel your portfolio is strong enough to get into a graduate program? I would say the title of your degree is secondary to the strength of your portfolio, depending on where you want to go. Some of the more "old school" programs back east might not agree with this, but then again some of those teachers are still writing serial "music." Last time I checked it wasn't 1950 anymore. You could also make the case for staying in school to beef up your portfolio, as music school is the ideal laboratory for a composer--where else do you have so many musicians at your fingertips willing to play new music? Besides, you should still be experimenting to a fairly large degree right now, until you better develop your personal "voice." This is the place to do that.
I will investigate further and have an answer for you. This is aggrevating though. In the meantime decide if you really want to try and get the comp degree and if you do, we can make it happen.